Le duc d'Albe

Le duc d'Albe Il duca d'Alba
Opera by Gaetano Donizetti
Set design for the 1882 premiere
Librettist	Eugène Scribe Charles Duveyrier
Premiere	22 March 1882 (1882-03-22) Teatro Apollo, Rome

Le duc d'Albe (its original French title) or Il duca d'Alba (its later Italian title)) is an opera in three acts originally composed by Gaetano Donizetti in 1839 to a French language libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier. Its title, which translates as The Duke of Alba, refers to its protagonist Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba. The work was intended for performance at the Paris Opéra. However, William Ashbrook notes that "Rosine Stoltz, the director's mistress, disliked her intended role of Hélène and Donizetti put the work aside when it was half completed"

Donizetti then abandoned the score in favour of continuing to work simultaneously on both L'ange de Nisida and L'elisir d'amore, and thus it was nearly 34 years after the composer's death that it was completed by his former pupil Matteo Salvi and received its first performance in an Italian translation and under its Italian title Il duca d'Alba at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 22 March 1882 with Leone Giraldoni in the title role, Abigaille Bruschi Chiatti as Amelia di Egmont, and Julián Gayarre as Marcello.

It received almost no performances in Italian until the mid-20th century and was only given its first performances in French in May 2012.

The opera had been originally commissioned for the Paris Opéra in 1839, and Donizetti worked on it throughout most of that year. However, he abandoned the project with only the first two acts completed, plus notes for the melodies and bass lines for acts 3 and 4. The opera remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1848.